Here is a summary of the knowledge presented at last year's conference on AA and NA: The preponderance of evidence supports the causal pathway that AA attendance leads to abstinence (Kaskutas, Zemore). 12-Step affiliation significantly enhances the odds of sustaining abstinence for multiple years among polysubstance-dependent individuals (Laudet). 12-Step involvement yields benefits above and beyond meeting attendance (Kaskutas, … Continue reading How AA and NA work
Category: Research
Follow up on recent posts
The Best We Can Do? - The more I think about this kind of stuff the angrier I get. It's the equivalent of finding someone collapsing with a heart attack in the middle of a street, helping them get to a sidewalk, leaving them there and then congratulating yourself with statements like, "They'd never survive that heart … Continue reading Follow up on recent posts
Learn to be lucky
This has nothing to do with addiction but I'm perseverating about it, so I thought I'd share it. Take the case of chance opportunities. Lucky people consistently encounter such opportunities, whereas unlucky people do not. I carried out a simple experiment to discover whether this was due to differences in their ability to spot such … Continue reading Learn to be lucky
Behavior Change
Behavior change and motivation to change are interesting to me. I have spent a lot of time thinking about how to maximize the likelihood that someone "gets it" (hope) while they are in treatment or detox and starts to take action. When all of the stars line up it is a beautiful and rewarding thing to witness … Continue reading Behavior Change
Why Almost Everything You Hear About Medicine Is Wrong
A troubling story about the the state of medical research: If you follow the news about health research, you risk whiplash. First garlic lowers bad cholesterol, then—after more study—it doesn’t. Hormone replacement reduces the risk of heart disease in postmenopausal women, until a huge study finds that it doesn’t (and that it raises the risk … Continue reading Why Almost Everything You Hear About Medicine Is Wrong
Food addiction?
A recent study on the neurobiology of food addiction is getting a lot of attention. Maia Szalavitz has a very good summary of its findings. The study used fMRI brain scans of subjects with and without food problems being shown sweets and bland, boring foods. The scientists found that when viewing images of ice cream, … Continue reading Food addiction?
CarePartners
The University of Michigan is trying a new program to improve depression care by involving a friend or family member in their care. Patients who enroll in the CarePartner program enlist a trusted individual in their life to check-in on them and help manage depressive symptoms. The program entails the patient completing an automated telephone assessment … Continue reading CarePartners
Addicted to discovery
A new article in Addictive Behaviors suggests that some research may be focused on meeting the needs of the researcher and media rather than clinicians or patients: I'd like to suggest that perhaps the scientific community may be addicted to discovery, with too little consideration of the consequences. Indeed, Stange and Phillips (2007) contend that … Continue reading Addicted to discovery
Hepatitis C cure?
This is very exciting news. The cocktails consist of two new drugs: boceprevir from Merck & Co., and telaprevir from Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Each is paired with two drugs used to treat hepatitis C for more than a decade -- interferon and ribavirin. Although interferon and ribavirin have worked in some people, thousands took the drugs … Continue reading Hepatitis C cure?
Journal articles
Neuron has a special issue on addiction. Content is temporarily free. To check it out it click on the article and then click on the PDF link under Article Information.
Recovery Review 